An Inside Look at How Hulu’s Employee Resource Groups Have Pivoted Plans and Continued to Maximize Impact While Working Remotely

Hulu’s Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are grassroots groups formed by Hulugans across all demographics who play a critical role in the company’s diversity and inclusion strategy. They support the personal growth and professional development of their members, and they create space to celebrate culture, welcome speakers, share resources, and develop programs and opportunities for themselves as well as the broader community.

When Hulu offices closed in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ERGs were faced with the challenge of continuing programming and keeping members engaged from home. Instead of letting this unexpected shift derail their plans, ERG leaders and members worked together to find new ways to reinvent past traditions. Below are just a few examples of how three of Hulu’s ERGs are making the most of this moment.

Hulu Pride:

For Hulu Pride, which is focused on fostering a safe and inclusive community of LGBTQ+ Hulugans and allies, every June is about celebrating Pride Month. However this year, both the internal and consumer-facing strategies took on new form. Santa Monica Hulu Pride co-lead and Marketing Brand Manager Casey Reed, shared her experience with this shift:

“I was lucky to get to develop our brand marketing strategy around Pride month both from the ERG perspective and as the campaign lead of Pridefest, a consumer-facing immersive digital festival which allowed users to virtually connect and enjoy DJ sets, dance performances, and cultural conversations from an extensive lineup of LGBTQ+ and ally entertainers and athletes. It was seamless to integrate the ERG values and invite employees to participate, so I tapped our ERG leadership board to consult on various details within the consumer experience, including selecting LGBTQ+ performers and over 12 different flags representing the spectrum of identities within the LGBTQ+ community.”

Casey added, “We shifted the usual celebratory tone of Pride to be more reflective of the brown, Black, and trans trailblazers in our community, and we explored how we could support our Black employees and Hulu Black ERG counterparts. Internally, we replaced our usual entertainment during the month of June with trivia questions reflecting on our history to encourage self-education.”

In October, Hulu Pride members from across the country came together remotely for Spirit Day to stand against the bullying of LGBTQ+ teens. Because everyone joined remotely, it opened up the opportunity to share this moment with Hulugans from different offices and resulted in the largest team picture yet.

The leaders of Hulu Pride’s San Antonio chapter also emphasized the importance of community. Veronica Rolland, Operational Business Analyst in Viewer Experience, shared, “We learned quickly that we all handle stress in different ways — Some tend to be reclusive and not want the necessity of maintaining social obligations, some throw themselves into work or helping those around them, some need a simple distraction from stress, etc. These differences have helped us not only understand our leadership committee better, but our Pride Members as well, and we have made an effort to shift and do our best to ensure everyone feels supported.”

Karen Schuster, Training Curriculum Specialist in Viewer Experience, echoed this sentiment, sharing, “The most rewarding aspect for me during this time has been to see our members taking care of each other… it’s a deep connection among Pridesters where you know they would do anything to show up for each other, even if it has to be done virtually. You can see the Hulu culture shining through.”

Hula:

2020 was a transitional year for Hula, Hulu’s ERG focused on fostering community to enable women to thrive in work and in life. Nicole Halamuda, Senior Manager, Planning in Advertising Sales, believes “key skills in a time of constant change like now are adaptability and resilience,” two traits that have been invaluable to the group’s process of adapting programming to a virtual world.

One of the most successful year-long programming initiatives is the Hula Mentorship Program, which runs quarterly and historically involved one-on-one matches. Nicole spoke about the process within Hula’s Santa Monica chapter of reevaluating the program to be virtual:

“Our mentorship chairs reimagined it into a new opportunity centered around small groups of 2–5 Hula members, led by one Hula mentor, aligning to key topics. We believe this will help foster connection and mentorship, which our members have been craving.”

Hula’s largest tentpole event around Women’s Equality Day also went virtual this summer. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, Hula partnered with VoteRiders, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that works to ensure every eligible American voter has the ID and information they need to vote with confidence. As part of Hulu’s larger One Small Action initiative, Hula hosted virtual civic engagement workshops around letter writing and phone banking, yielding 700+ letters and hundreds of calls.

San Antonio’s Hula chapter focused initial plans for the year on career development and self-advocacy in the workplace. However, when the pandemic hit, there was a newfound understanding that the most pressing priorities for some members had shifted. They recognized a renewed focus on the importance of family during this time and wanted to honor and celebrate women in their lives leading up to Mother’s Day this year. Deb Preston, Team Manager in Viewer Experience, highlighted this initiative and shared:

“We asked Hula-gans to share photos of their mothers or other important figures in their lives and explain what made them so inspirational. We were able to collectively celebrate story after story of women making a difference in their families and communities.”

Hulu Black:

For Hulu Black, Hulu’s ERG focused on fostering connections and enabling Black Hulugans to thrive in and out of work, the focus during this time shifted to leaning into Hulu’s value of “Think Big” and innovating through this moment. Embracing creativity became a top priority for thinking through how to interact and engage with the community.

One of Hulu Black’s key initiatives this summer was a cross-location Juneteenth event, which came at a time of increased focus on racial and social injustice. Tiffany Kamani, Senior Recruiter in HR, reflected, “We partnered with teams across the company to host a Hulu-wide film festival and promoted and supported Black restaurants and businesses.”

Members of Hulu Black in San Antonio have also led the development of a new and consistent flow within this newfound reality. Each week, “Wellness Wednesdays” have become time for the group to come together virtually to share tips and practices for managing mental and physical health challenges during this time. Additionally, Bruce Smith, Team Manager Lead in Viewer Experience, helped spearhead the Black Literature Contest which ties into a greater focus on education during this period:

“We selected content with a connection to some form of Black literature from Hulu’s library. Whether it’s a Black author, the story of a Black historical figure, etc., every week we’ve had different movies and documentaries (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I Am Not Your Negro) and a questionnaire to go with the content. We do a drawing from everyone who gets the correct answers, and the winner receives a literature-themed prize that corresponds with the featured film of that week.”

These stories are just a sample of how Hulu’s ERG’s have pivoted and made the best of a challenging time. We are so proud of this tremendous work and of all who have been, and will continue to be, involved in the challenging and impactful project of reinventing strategy and processes to match the moment.

Stay tuned for future features that will highlight other key moments in diversity and inclusion and the incredible work being done by Hulu’s other ERGs!